Transformers: Devastation
RWBY ("ruby") is an American anime, manga, and video game created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth along with Andrew Lloyd Webber for Really Useful Group, Thomas Tull for Legendary Entertainment, Steven Spielberg for Amblin Television and Christopher Nolan for Syncopy. The show is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people train to become Huntsmen and Huntresses to protect their world from the creatures of Grimm. The first episode was released on the Rooster Teeth website on July 18, 2013 following an exclusive screening at RTX. Volume 2 premiered on July 4, 2014 at RTX and to the general public on July 24, 2014. This was followed by Volume 3 on October 24, 2015. Volume 4 was officially announced on April 1, 2016, and premiered on October 22, 2016. This volume takes place 6–8 months after Volume 3, and features an updated visual style with new character designs. Following its announcement, the show became a viral hit, resulting in many cosplays and fan adaptations. One of these adaptations, a fan game titled RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, was later officially adopted by Rooster Teeth, and was fully released for PC on July 5, 2016. On February 1, 2015, the show's creator Monty Oum died after falling into a coma that was caused by an allergic reaction during a medical procedure. This left the future of the series uncertain for a brief period of time until director Steven Spielberg along with J. J. Abrams announced that the series would continue, and that Volume 3 would premiere in 2015 as planned. A spin-off of the show, titled RWBY Chibi, was also announced. Episode 1 premiered on May 7, 2016. RWBY Chibi season 2 and RWBY Volume 5 were officially announced on January 23, 2017. RWBY Chibi season 2 will premiere in May 2017. RWBY Volume 5 is set to premiere in fall 2017. Since 2017, RWBY is broadcast on Tokyo MX in Japan in partnership with Warner Bros. Japan. Premise The story takes place in the world of Remnant, which is filled with forces and creatures known as the "Creatures of Grimm". Prior to the events of the series, mankind waged a battle of survival against the Grimm before discovering the power of a mysterious element called Dust, which allowed them to fight back against the monsters. In the present day, Dust is used to power abilities and weapons. Those who use these abilities to battle the Grimm are known as Huntsmen or Huntresses. The series focuses on four girls, each with her own unique weapon and powers. Together, they form team RWBY ("ruby") at Beacon Academy in the city of Vale, where they are trained to become Huntresses alongside team JNPR ("juniper"), team SSSN ("sun"), team CRDL ("cardinal") team CFVY ("coffee"), and various other named and unnamed student teams. Volume 1 focuses on the introduction of the characters of the story, marking the events that lead to their team formations. All the while, mysterious thefts of Dust are occurring around the city of Vale, notably organized by the show's antagonist, Roman Torchwick. Volume 2 follows up from these events of Volume 1, and team RWBY sets out in order to investigate the meaning behind these thefts. They aim to discover the villain's plans for the city of Vale before the Vytal Festival—a festival between the four kingdoms of Remnant where they have their best students demonstrate their skills and abilities in celebration of the peace between all four kingdoms. Volume 3 starts with the beginning of the Vytal Festival; however, a sinister plot lurks behind the celebratory events, and the heroes can only do so much to prepare for the evil that is coming. Volume 4 takes place six to eight months following the events of Volume 3, with the members of Team RWBY separated and in different parts of the globe, and each of the girls will have to take on personal journeys of their own if they are to move forward in life. Music Hans Zimmer composed the film score, emphasizing a challenge to not reuse the themes he established with Sonic Unleashed with James Newton Howard. Junkie XL, who provided additional music in RWBY Volume 1 and Man of Steel, also returned for this film, helping to compose the themes. Originally, Zimmer enlisted Junkie XL to compose the RWBY material, with Zimmer planning to focus solely on the Team RWBY side of the score, but the final themes were written by both composers as a collaboration. Zimmer noted that he had significant trouble in finding a new angle from which to tell the story and after the release of volume 3 along with the film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zimmer announced that he was retired from superhero films. Cast and characters :Main article: List of RWBY characters *Main cast (credited, or appears in every episode for the season) *Recurring cast (5+ appearances in season) *Guest cast (1-4 appearances in season) Development RWBY had been a long-standing concept of Oum's for years before it began development. Towards the end of his work on the 10th season of Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue, he developed the color-coding approach to character names and design as a hook for the series. During production on Red vs. Blue season 10, Oum asked series creator Burnie Burns if they could produce RWBY following the conclusion of that season. Burns, worried for the production schedule, told Oum "If you finish Season 10, then you can do whatever you want." Production on RWBY began as intended, with the first trailer being finished within two weeks and premiering after the credits of the Red vs. Blue season 10 finale on November 5, 2012. Oum designed the characters with assistance from artist Ein Lee, utilizing designs inspired by classic fairy tale characters. Each character has an associated color, and it is the first letters of the main character's colors, red, white, black, and yellow, that give the series its name. The series was originally written by Oum, along with fellow Rooster Teeth employees Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross. Oum was initially concerned about a story focusing on female characters being developed by a primarily male crew, but said they managed to do well developing the female characters. Seasons 1 to 3 were animated by Rooster Teeth's internal animation team using Smith Micro's Poser software. Starting in Season 4, episodes are now being animated in Autodesk Maya. The series' music score is composed by Hans Zimmer (for Volumes 1 to 3 and later themes) and Lorne Balfe (for Volumes 4 and 5, who also did the additional music for Volume 1) and featured songs for the music by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics by Glenn Slater and the additional lyrics by Charles Hart, who previously helped Lloyd Webber in The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies. Promotion A series of four promotional trailers, one for each lead character, were released in the lead-up to the series premiere. They were primarily produced by Oum and assistant animator Shane Newville. Each trailer begins by unveiling one of the four primary characters and then showing a detailed action sequence. The "Red" trailer was shown after the credits for Red vs. Blue's season 10 finale in November 2012. It was followed by the "White" trailer in February 2013. The "Black" trailer was unveiled at a PAX East panel at the end of March and was the first to include voice-acted dialogue. Following the premiere of the "Black" trailer, Oum noted with regret that the first two trailers were shorter and had less character development. The "Yellow" trailer was shown at Rooster Teeth's A-Kon panel on June 1, 2013. Music from the trailers is being sold for digital download on several online retailers. The first episode premiered on July 5, 2013, at a panel at RTX 2013. It premiered online two weeks later on July 18, 2013. Release Volume 1 consists of sixteen episodes, with episodes being around 12 minutes long. However, all episodes except the first episode, eighth episode, and finale were released in two six-minute parts, comprising sixteen parts in total. Volume 1 concluded in November 2013, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the same month. Episodes premiere to the public Thursdays at 7 pm Central Standard Time (UTC-6) on the Rooster Teeth website and are released two hours early for sponsors. They are uploaded to YouTube a week later. Crunchyroll announced on August 16, 2013, that RWBY would be simulcast on the video streaming site. Volume 2 premiered on July 24, 2014, following its exclusive screening at RTX on July 4, 2014. Volume 2 featured twelve episodes, each at around 12 minutes long; the episodes were no longer released in parts. The twelfth and final episode of Volume 2 aired on October 30, 2014, after which it was released on DVD and Blu-ray. Volume 3 was confirmed at the Rooster Teeth panel at PAX Prime 2014, where Oum stated that he planned to go straight into development of the next season as he was nearly completed with Volume 2. It premiered on October 24, 2015 with an episode of the backstory series World of Remnant. Volume 4 was confirmed during an interview with AfterBuzz TV, in which producer/co-director Gray G. Haddock mentioned that Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross had begun writing for the new Volume. Volume 4 was officially announced by Haddock on April 1, 2016 and was set to premiere in fall 2016. At RTX 2016, Rooster Teeth announced that Volume 4 would debut on October 22, 2016. Volume 5 was confirmed in January 2017, though no plot details were provided at the time. Reception Critical response Commentators discussing the promotional trailers lauded the show's animation style and its musical soundtrack. The trailers prompted enthusiastic anticipation for the series premiere. When the first episode premiered at RTX, it was popular with attendees to the point that seating was full at all three screenings. Amanda Rush, writing for Crunchyroll, noted the anime and Western influences of the series, and praised it as "quick-witted, exciting, lovely to look at" saying fans of anime would enjoy it. The Yakima Herald-Republic called it "thrilling" and "captivating" and praised its "beautiful" 3D character animation. [[The Austin Chronicle|The Austin Chronicle]] described the premiere as making Oum the "rock star" of Rooster Teeth. The series has reportedly contributed to a 9% increase in views for Rooster Teeth's official YouTube channel. Kotaku's Richard Eisenbeis praised the series for its clever use of fairytale elements, fun and enjoyable dialogue, and the fighting choreography, but was critical about the short nature of the episodes, stating that, "The biggest drawback in doing a micro-series... is that there is precious little time for good characterization". He was also critical of the technical issues of the animation, mentioning that the animation is good when the audience is unable to see the character's feet. He ends by saying that "RWBY is a good first step into a world of possibilities." Awards At the 2014 International Academy of Web Television Awards, RWBY won the award for Best Animated Series. At the 2014 Streamy Awards, RWBY won for Best Animated Series and Hans Zimmer both won for Best Original Score. Distribution The Blu-ray and DVD releases in Australia are handled by Hanabee Entertainment. A local Japanese dub is being developed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Japan, with plans for release on Blu-ray and DVD in 2015, marking the first time an American-produced anime-inspired series has been marketed in Japan. Warner Bros. has also acquired local merchandising rights as well. On February 1, 2015, Rooster Teeth, Universal and Warner Bros. announced that both volumes of RWBY so far were available for streaming on Netflix. The first volume was released in the UK on May 4, 2015, on DVD. Music The original score for volumes 1 to 3 of RWBY has been composed primarily by Hans Zimmer with the additional music for volume 1 of RWBY were composed by Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) (who later co-composed the music for volume 3 of RWBY), Andrew Kawczynski, Steve Mazzaro and Atli Örvarsson along with the additional arrangements by Jasha Klebe while the additional arrangements for volume 2 of RWBY were also provided by Andrew Kawczynski and Steve Mazzaro as well as the additional music for volume 3 of RWBY were later composed by Andrew Kawczynski, Steve Mazzaro and Benjamin Wallfisch. Later the music score for volume 4 of RWBY has also been composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams while the additional music and programming for volume 4 of RWBY were later composed and provided by Andrew Kawczynski, Evan Jolly, Tom Howe and Paul Mounsey with the original themes from RWBY Volumes 1 to 3 by Hans Zimmer and Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL). The original songs with the music composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics were written by Glenn Slater while the additional lyrics were written by Charles Hart. RWBY's soundtrack features a variety of genres, most notably intense, fast-paced rock music. ''Volume 1 Soundtrack'' :Main article: RWBY: Volume 1 Soundtrack ''Volume 2 Soundtrack'' :Main article: RWBY: Volume 2 Soundtrack ''Volume 3 Soundtrack'' :Main article: RWBY: Volume 3 Soundtrack ''Volume 4 Soundtrack'' :Main article: RWBY: Volume 4 Soundtrack Other media Video game For Rooster Teeth's anniversary in 2014, fan Jordan Scott created a video game based on RWBY, titled RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, using the Unity engine. It was in development for a total of five months. Based on the events in the first trailer, the demo was a "hack 'n slash survival" featuring Ruby facing escalating waves of Grimm attacks. Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku praised its combo system, which "excellently mirrored its animated counterpart," and its unlockable skills, saying, "you'll feel like an unstoppable badass akin to Ruby in the series." At RTX 2014, Rooster Teeth announced that they had hired Scott, and officially picked up the game. An early demo of the game was available for consumers to play at the event, and the game's title was changed from "Grim Eclipse" to "Grimm Eclipse" to match the spelling of the creatures in the show. Rooster Teeth CEO Matt Hullum stated, "RWBY is a natural choice for us to focus on for our first in-house produced video game. Fans can expect that we will bring the same level of originality in action, comedy and design to the video game that has made the RWBY animated series such a hit." On December 1, 2015 the game was released as an Early Access title on Steam, with the full PC release on July 5, 2016. The game was released for Mac OS X on October 13, 2016, and was later released for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on January 17, 2017. The game allows one to four of the main characters in any combination(s) to battle through waves of Grimm. They are also on the trail of a mysterious company and its founder. The action takes place in the Emerald Forest, Mountain Glenn, Forever Fall and ultimately to an island named after the antagonist, Doctor Merlot. Manga The November 2015 issue of Shueisha's Ultra Jump magazine announced that ''Dogs'' manga author Shirow Miwa would be illustrating a manga adaptation of RWBY, which debuted in the December 2015 issue on November 19, 2015. The manga will "reveal mysteries of the four trailers." The manga concluded in February 2017. ''RWBY Chibi'' :Main article: RWBY Chibi RWBY Chibi is a comedic animated spin-off of RWBY compromising 24 3–6 minute long episodes. It was first announced as part of Rooster Teeth's 13th Anniversary celebration on April 1, 2016, and Episode 1 premiered on May 7, 2016. Its first season concluded on October 15, 2016. Each episode consists of several scenes where aspects of RWBY's characters are usually exaggerated for comic effect. The episodes follow no strict chronological order, nor do they follow strict canon of the main show. The score was composed by Lorne Balfe with the themes of Hans Zimmer. In January 2017, Rooster Teeth confirmed that a second season would launch that May. Death Battle Yang appeared as a combatant in the popular online series Death Battle by ScrewAttack! (a sister company to Rooster Teeth under Fullscreen), where she fought Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII (who was also featured in Oum's Dead Fantasy series). Bryce Dallas Howard reprised her role for the episode. The series creator, Ben Singer, talked with Oum and Steven Spielberg about including a RWBY character on Death Battle before Oum's passing. External links *Official website *[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3066242/ RWBY] at the Internet Movie Database *[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=17739 RWBY] (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia *[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=17740 RWBY] (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia Category:2013 web series debuts Category:American web series Category:Adventure anime and manga Category:Fantasy anime and manga Category:Action anime and manga Category:Animated action television series Category:Animated adventure television series Category:Animated fantasy television series Category:Animated internet series Category:Animated science fiction television series Category:Anime-influenced animation Category:Anthropomorphism by media Category:Dark fantasy Category:Family in fiction Category:Magic in fiction Category:Martial arts web series Category:Monsters in fiction Category:RWBY Category:Schools in fiction Category:Science fantasy television series Category:Streamy Award-winning channels, series or shows Category:Wars in fiction Category:Works based on Grimms' Fairy Tales Category:2016 video games Category:Musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Glenn Slater Category:Musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart (lyricist) Category:Film scores by Hans Zimmer Category:Film scores by Junkie XL Category:Film scores by Rupert Gregson-Williams Category:Screenplays by David S. Goyer Category:Screenplays by David Henry Hwang Category:Screenplays by Jonathan Nolan Category:Screenplays by Evan Spiliotopoulos Category:Films directed by Steven Spielberg Category:Films directed by J. J. Abrams Category:Films produced by Kathleen Kennedy Category:Television series by Universal Television Category:Television series by Warner Bros. Animation